Daichi Saito

Hi,

I just wanted to let you guys know about the Balagan film screening that happened this Tuesday at the Brattle. There were seven films screened by the Japanese Canadian artist Daichi Saito that varied from super 8 to 16mm to 35mm. I was really interested in his process because Saito does almost all steps of processing and transferring the film himself. This allowed him to distort his images in a really nice way. One example is the second film screened where he shot everything with a high contrast film, transferred it to a VHS tape which distorted the image, and then filmed the VHS tape as it played on a tv screen. This gave it a really cool overlap of geometric shapes over his original film, which I thought was pretty awesome. I wrote down more technical stuff that I thought was cool, so if you have any questions just ask me.

The content of Saito's work seems to be very concerned with the technical aspects of film. He likes to use single frames and flickers to accentuate his cuts and the editing process. This creates a really nice rhythm to his films, but sometimes the films bombard you with so much light and color that you feel like you are going to have a seizure, particularly in Green Fuse and Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis. If you are the kind of person that feels you have to be able to look at something pleasing or easy on the eyes, Saito is definitely not for you. That's not to say that Saito's work isn't beautiful though. His use of composition and color is very nice and I personally felt that his manipulation of the film processes were brilliant and can't wait to try some of it out myself. My one criticism is in how the rhythm was treated and the beginning and ending of the films, with the exception of the first film Chiasmus. This may be because Abi Child was my first film teacher, but who knows. I just felt that in terms of the rhythm it was too easy for me to see a pattern to it despite the chaotic nature of the sound and image. I enjoy the feeling of watching a film and as soon as I can start to feel the rhythm to it, it suddenly changes. This keeps me engaged and surprised the whole time, and I felt that sometimes Saito's films gave away every pattern too quickly if that makes any sense at all. With the beginning and ending I felt that the films would simply jump right in and then I could feel the end approaching later. I think my frustration with this is that I didn't see a dynamic ending or beginning, and it wasn't until I reached the middle of the film that I got really excited. Despite all that though, I had a great time and can't wait for the next series of screenings. I think everyone should go if they can. It was only $5 and I got to see everything on super 8. 16mm, and 35mm projectors which is a way different feel than the Brakhage DVD I got from the library.

Oh, I hope this post isn't too long, but I had to be fair to Saito